The Rose Episode 1 of the Doomsday Books Series
by Rose Ghost
Summary: This series is set in an alternate universe where Rose Tyler was never born. Instead Roxanne Tylor is born and becomes the ninth Doctor's companion. This is her story. There are a few changes the Doctor will still regenerate and the story will follow a s
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

Roxanne Tylor, the daughter of Jack Tylor - engineer and part time writer of bad horror novels - and Petronella Tylor, was lying amongst the rubble of an exploded clothing factory, sobbing quietly, but not too enthusiasticaly, as she was becoming dehydryted. Her left leg was stuck straight out in front of her, the foot twisted at a sharp and sickening angle. Roxanne had been lucky in that she'd been thrown clear of the explosion, but had badly turned her ankle on the when she fell among the ruins of the factory. She was afraid she might even have broken it.

Roxanne was crying because she was in shock and had the paranoid fear that if she started to shout for help, her injury would hurt even more than it already did, and the agony was only just bearable now, but she was also crying because she believed she had just witnessed someone's death. The man - leather jacket, mancunian, buzz cut - had pushed her out of the door just before the explosion threw her roughly into the air. Roxanne figured out it must have been him who set off the bomb.

She leaned her head against a huge piece of wall (?) behind her, tried to keep her breathing steady and wondered what the hell she was supposed to do now. Her phone was a clump of mangled and crushed plastic on the ground beside her. No phoning home. Roxanne was stuck where she was, unless someone found her and could help her.

She became aware of a deep, northern voice calling to her, somewhere in front of where she lay, behind a pile of rubble. The man with the bomb, she realised a few seconds later. He was alive! "Hello? Where are you? Talk to me so I can find you!" He called.

The voice was closer now, and Roxanne felt her body instinctivly tensing up in case she had to fight. Awful thoughts flashed through her mind, clips form her worst nightmares - rape, murder (she reminded herself that she was a witness to his bombing of the factory), being found months later as a dismembered corpse buried in the middle of a field...

But rapist or not, murderor or not, whatever he was, Roxanne needed help, and at the moment, this man was the only person around who could offer her that help, so she called out. "I'm here! Help me. I need help. Help!" She was surprised at the weak quality of her voice.

"Hold on!"

In spite of her fear, Roxanne was reassured as soon as she saw him, a dusty and disheveled man in a ancient leather jacket and a kind but concerned grin on his angular face. He jogged up to her and crouched down in front of her, close to her injured ankle. She looked up at him, eyes wide with terror and pain. He streatched out a hand and she took it almost without thinking. "It's alright, Rose. I'm here to help. I'm the Doctor, remember?"

She nodded, giggling slightly thorugh the whimpers of pain, and wondered if she was becoming delirious. "I remember - I think I need a Doctor." She giggled again, a tear of relief dribbling down her face. "And it's Roxanne. I can't stand 'Rose'."

The grin broadened slightly. "Roxanne. Is it just the ankle? Nothing else hurting really badly?"

"No. How'd you know it was my ankle?"

"It's pretty obvious." He moved a little so his hands were gently pressing on her foot. He looked her straight in the eyes, and she noticed how startlingly blue his were - the colour of oceans, of calm skies, of iceburgs. "Right. I want you to take a deep breath for me."

"Why? What you gonna do to me?" Roxanne tried to back off but found her way blocked by the huge slab of concrete behind her.

The Doctor gripped her hand and squeezed. "If I told you, you wouldn't do it. You're going to have to trust me on this one. Can you trust me?"

Roxanne peered into the man's eyes and steadied his face carefully. After a pause she said. "No. No, I don't"

"Well, I'm afraid you're gonna have to if you want to walk on that in the next month. How about you give it a try, yeah?"

She squeezed his hand back, in need of some kind of human contact. She was cold and she needed reassurance. "Just make it quick, whatever you're going to do." Roxanne covered her face with a hand that was trembling badly.

"Deep breaths then, eh?" The Doctor said warningly. She closed her eyes, breathed in like she'd been ordered to. Seconds later she felt her ankle yanked back round to its rightful position. The pain didn't come for about half a second, and when it did, it was a white hot shrieking pain, and she let out a shrill squeal. It was the purest pain she's ever felt in her life, and the sharpest, btut it felt right. Something was clicking back into place. Instinctivly, Roxanne lashed out and her slim, bony wrist connected with the side of the Doctor's head with a hard 'twack', and then she went back to gasping over the pain, gripping her ankle as hard as she could and trying to squeeze the hurt away somehow.

Eventually, the pain slowly ebbed away to a bearable ache. She moved the foot experimentally and was rewarded by a sharp pain that shot up her leg like white flame, but at least she could stand to move it a little.

"Better?" asked the Doctor, rubbing the side of his head and grinning ruefully.

"I don't know what you're a Doctor of, but that worked. Thanks. Thanks a lot."

"Can you stand?"

"I don't know." She took hold of his outstretched hands and gingerly heaved herself up onto her right foot, reluctant to put weight on the left. She bit her lip hard to distract from the agony that resulted in placing her left foot on the ground and felt her long nails sinking into the man's flesh. Roxanne heard him whistle between his teeth as he gasped, but otherwise he gave no complaint.

"You need to try and put weight on it - you won't get far like that."

"It hurts..." It was half a whine, half a sob of pain.

"Try..." She did try, all the while clinging on the Doctor for support, but her ankle felt like it had swollen to the size of a basketball, bursting out with pain, and tears stung at her eyes.

"I can't." Roxanne wanted nothing more than to just sink back to the ground and go to sleep for a couple of days - that would be nice, so nice - but the Doctor was determined to hold her up and she leaned into his chest instead. "Take me home, Doctor." She whispered, half unconsious by now, salty face pressed against leather.

The Doctor patted her dark aubern hair, and then lifted her off the eground, so she fell gratefully into his arms. She lifted her head slightly in alarm as he started to walk away from the site of the explosion. "Where are you taking me?"

"Away. Just relax and don't move. I don't wanna jog that ankle of yours." Roxanne leaned her head back so it rested on the Doctor's shoulder and tried not to think those thoughts about rape again. 


	2. Chapter 2

Roxanne was sprawled on her bed, sleeping off 5 hours in casualty plus a cocktail of foul tasting painkillers. Her injured foot was tightly bandaged and still ached horribly, despite the drugs. She'd been diagnosed with a bad sprain - the real damage had been set right by the strange man who called himself 'The Doctor' - and advised to stay at home and rest for a couple of days. 

Her father had quizzed her endlessly in the hospital and when they'd arrived home - the Doctor had conveniantly left shortly before her dad got there. "What did he look like?" "How old was he?" "Did he take you straight to the hospital?" until Roxanne thought she was going to scream. The only truth she'd told was his appearance and a rough guess at his age. Everything else she had twisted slightly, so it sounded more plausible, and to avoid any more questions. She definately didn't imply that it had been the Doctor who had blown up the factory and instead explained that he had seen the explosion and come to investigate before going to find a phone box to call help, and that he drove an old blue ford - maybe a focus. Half truths. The box the man had carried her into had been blue.

"Did he tell you his name?"John Tylor asked.

"Jim." Roxanne said promptly. "Jim Collins or Cowins...something like that...I don't remember." She'd feigned exhaustion and grogginess from the painkillers after they'd got back from the hospital, so her father let her go to bed, promising to get her some forms so she could apply for compensation from her work. Roxanne wasn't too fussed about that - when the managing director found some new premises they'd probably give her her job back with any backpay she was owed. In the meantime? She'd get a part time or temporary job no problem. She quite liked the idea of working in the butchers in town - a change of direction, and she had the shop experience anyway. so there was no ned to worry about anything for a few days. She slept, relaxing easily at the prospect of no work in the morning and being able to slob at home all day nursing her ankle.

As she slept she dreamed. She dreamed of man in a worn leather jacket who traveled thorugh time and space in an absurd looking 1960's blue police telephone box that wasn't a police box. On the inside it was infinately large and filled with the travellers life: souveneirs from every planet he'd visited in the course of his travels, thousands and thousands of them, books which told the whle history of everything, memories of the people he'd shared his life with. The dreams were comforting, but had an undertone of danger, as if the man carried death and suffering around with him wherever he went. Not in himself - Roxanne had never met someone who could radiate such a feeling of reasurance and the 'everything's going to be alright if you trust me' vibe - but as though death followed him from place to place, chasing him, never letting go of it's hold on the Doctor and those he cared about.

Roxanne sensed she was somehow linked to this man, by the dreams and the explosion that had destroyed her workplace but could remember nothing about the dreams when she awoke, except for a vague sense that she had 'gone home' in her sleep.

At last, around 6:15, the gentle dreams gave way to the worst nightmares Roxanne had ever had in her life. Even the ones about hot air balloons with horrible, gaping, smiley faces when she was a young child hadn't been like this. This was real.

She was being chased through darkened streets. She soon realised it was her own town after recognising several of the shops, including the butchers she'd been thinking about earlier. She turned her head unwillingly, to see a group - six or seven, maybe as many as eight. It was hard to tell in the dim light of the dream - of shop window mannequins dressed in wigs and lingerie (the factory made and sold women's underwear) running after her, plastic arms pumping the ground comically as they pursued her. They were the kind they use at the factory shop where Roxanne worked. The kind that had attacked her in the basement when she was locking up, before the Doctor had come to her rescue and seen her safely out fo the building before he blew it up. They were gaining on her and Roxanne could see the joints of their hips and knees moving inhumanly as they drew closer, and heard the plasticky clank of their feet "Doctor!" She heard herself cry in fright. Suddenly she was unable to run anymore.

That was where the dream ended, and Roxanne would find herself grappling with a pillow or her quilt as though trying to fend off an attacker. The nightmare recurred twice more that night, and at seven am, she decided to give up trying to sleep only to be confronted by the dream again, and settled down to read Harry Potter instead. The books she'd adored at age eleven were now her comfort books - like nan's saturday lunches, and the toffee apples her mum used to buy for her to take to bonfire parties. Her mother had been kiled in a car accident a few days before Roxanne's fourteenth birthday.

While reading she heard something scratching at the front door - a combination of scratching and knocking to be more accurate. She was reminded of a friends cat who used to throw himself at the door when he wanted to be let in. It used to frighten Roxanne to death when she stayed at Sharon's house and that racket would start up.

But that cat was long dead, this was not Sharon's house, and Roxanne was scared.

Carefully, holding her left foot in front of her and hopping on her right leg, Roxanne made her way slowly out of the room. She went down the stairs until she could see the glass of the front door. Even in the half light she could see that there was nobody there.

On the way back to her bedroom she knocked her strapped up ankle on the top stair, and let out a harsh gasp that turned into a yelp. "What the hell are you doing Roxanne?" Her father called, sleepily, a few seconds later. "I thought there was someone at the door." "Well, for God's sake keep it down, then. You've got all day to sleep." Roxanne glowered at her father's closed door and held on the banister as she hopped back to her room, ankle pulsing with pain with every beat of her heart.


End file.
